Concertina-action.



B. GLASS.

GONGERTINA ACTION.

APPLICATION TILED MAR.17. 1911.

1,024,771 Patented Apr. 30, 1912.

M WM

COLUMBIA PLANOGRAPH c0., WASHINGTON, u. c.

ERNEST GLASS, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

CONCER'IINA-ACTIONI Specification of Letters Patent.

Application filed March 17, 1911.

Patented Apr. 30, 1912.

Serial No. 615,080.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, Enuns'r GLAss, a citizen of the United States,residing at Chicage, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, haveinvented certain new and useful Improvements in Concertina-Actions, ofwhich the following a specification.

My invention relates to a concertina action, and has for its object toprovide anovel form of action capable of being made entirely, or verylargely, of metal. It has been heretofore the general practice, so faras I am aware, to construct the keys and most of the other elementsgoing to make up concertina actions, very largely of wood, the necessaryflexible joints of the keys being ordinarily made of pieces of leather,or the like, glued to the wooden parts which they connect. This wood andleather construction. is open to serious objections which, I believe,had never been overcome until I devised the mechanism which will behereinafter described. When a concertina action is made according to theordinary practice the wooden parts are necessarily fragile and easilybroken and the leather joints liable to work loose, tear or be pulledaway from the wood to which they are attached. Furthermore the conditionof the atmosphere seriously affects both action and tone, dampness, forexample, causing the wood parts to swell, with the result that thefreedom of movement of the keys is hampered and the resonance of thewhole mechanism decreased. Finally, the wood action, whether dry or dampboth because of non-resonant character of the material and also becauseof the necessary size of the parts, mutlles the tones produced by theinstrument and makes them impure, this being especially true of thetones produced at points on the key board under the longer keys and moreparticularly as to the tones produced in the middle of the key board.This results in the additional disadvantage of unevenness in tone, someof the notes coming out much stronger and clearer than others. Thisunevenness is, for reasons above stated, increased in damp weather. Ihave overcome all of these disadvantages by providing an action of novelform which can be made very largely of metal, preferably of relativelynon-elastic metal which can be easily bent and will retain the bentform, such as aluminum.

The concert-ins action of my invention in addition to being muchstronger and more durable than the ordinary actions is not affected byatmospheric conditions, gives clearer, purer tones than can be producedby the instruments of ordinary construction, and, moreover, gives outtones which, in respect to strength, clearness and purity are uniformfor all parts of the key board.

The invention is illustrated, in a preferred embodiment, in theaccompanying drawing, wherein Figure 1 is a sectional. view taken on aline parallel to the keys; Fig. 2, a plan view of the same; Fig. 3, adetail elevation of a preferred form of button construction for theshorter keys, and Fig. i, a plan view illustrating a modifiedarrangen'ient made possible by my invention and which is a desirablearrangement under certain circumstances.

Like characters of reference indicate like parts in the several figuresof the drawing.

The type of coneertina which I have chosen for the purpose ofillustrating my invention has three sets of reeds controlled by threesets or banks of stops or keys of different lengths.

Referring to Figs. 1, 2 and 3 of the drawing, 10 designates the keyboard, and 11, 12 and 13, the different sets of reeds which arearranged. below the openings 14:, 15 and 16 in the key board. The keysin each case consist of solid metal bars, preferably aluminum castings,provided at one end with finger buttons and having pivoted to theiropposite extremities valves designed to cover the openings in the keyboard. The bars or levers of the longer keys are designated 17, those ofthe next shorter keys 18, and those of the shortest keys 1.9. The bars17 and 18 are pivotally mounted on a metal rod or wire 20 supported ateach end on a metal angle bracket 21 secured to the key board. The shortbars 19 are pivotally mounted on a rod or wire 22 supported by the sameangle brackets. The bars 17 and 18 are preferably formed with the hubswhich are preferably cast integrally with the bars and serve the doublepurpose of lengthening the bearing of the bars on red 20 and spacing thebars apart. The short set of bars 1.9 are formed with similar hubs 24which, however, are made somewhat longer for the reason that the rod 22carries only this one set of keys while both sets of keys 1? and 18 aremounted on the rod 20. A bridge consisting of a metal cross piececovered by a strip of leather 26 pasted on its upper surface andsupported on blocks 27 on the key board intervenes between the keys 1?and 'the lower shorter set of keys 19 and provides a stop for the uppertwo sets of keys. Under the keys 19 are preferably the leather pads 28.

I Secured to the ends of the bars 17, 18, 19 are finger buttonsconsisting preferably of cylindrical pieces 29 of wood. or other suitable material, capped with the disks 30 of mother of pearl, ivory, orthe like. The buttons for the bars 17 and 18 are preferably rigidlyconnected to the bars, this being feasible because of the length of thekeys, the buttons being bifurcated and set over the ends of the bars andattached theretoby the pins 31. The buttons of the shorter keys 19 areby preference pivoted to the keys and this is preferably done byproviding two strips of thin metal, 32, 32, the upper ends of. which areset into a bifurcation in the button and held therein by the cross pin33, the lower ends being spread and secured to opposite sides of the barby means of the rivet 34. The buttons extend through openings in anouter casing which serves as a guide for the buttons pivoted on theshort bars 19. The strips 32 bind to a certain extent on the bar and thefriction developed tends to keep the keys from rattling against casing35. Furthermore it is very important in replacing the cover 35 after ithas been removed for repair or adjustment of the action that the buttonsbe capable of retaining an upright position. Otherwise it would be verydifficult to get the cover back into place. The valves on the ends ofbars 17, 1S and 19 may be substantially alike in construction. They areshown as consisting in each case of an aluminum plate 36 on the uppersurface of which is cast a pair of lugs 37 between which extends the endof the key or bar, the valve being pivotally secured to the bar by meansof the pin or rivet 38. The under side of the valve is preferablycovered with a piece 89 of leather or other packing and sound deadeningmaterial. The bars 17 and 18 are formed on their upper edges with thelongitudinal grooves l0, 411,1'espectively, in which bear the ends ofsprings 42, 1 .3, springs 42 being secured to a rod or wire tat carriedon a bridge 45 mounted on the key board, the springs 13 being anchoredto a rod d6 carried on a bridge 47. The short bars 19 are formed ontheir under edges with similar grooves %S in which bear the ends of thegrasshopper springs 49.

With an arrangement above described but with the keys made of wood thetones emitted through the openings 16 and to a less extent those emittedthrough the openings 15 are muffled and made impure by the presence ofthe wooden keys above such opening, the interference of the keys withthe sounds produced being greater in the case of the interior keys thanthose at the sides of the key board and being further increased by theswelling of the wood in a damp atmosphere. These defects 1 have overcomeentirely by making the bars of the keys of metal instead of wood.

The better results obtained by my all metal action are due not only tothe more resonant character of the metal but also to the fact that thenecessary parts may be made smaller leaving larger spaces for the soundwaves. Furthermore, the mechanism is much stronger than a woodmechanism, is not affected as to the movements of its parts by moistureor other atmospheric conditions. In addition the keys move more truly.There is no looseness and no lost motion. Ordinarily the valves havebeen secured to the bars by leather joints of some sort. My pivotaljoint. while being much stronger and more durable, closes the openingsin the key board which it is designed to control more accurately. In thewooden actions very considerable difliculty has been experienced inconnection with the joint between the buttons of the shorter keys andthe wooden bars to which the buttons are attached. This joint iscustomarily made of leather which being thin is easily torn and beingglued to the wood parts which it connects is likely to work loose or bepulled off with usage or the drying or deterioration of the glue due tolapse of time. The pivotal button shown particularly in Fig. overcomesall of these difliculties.

In Fig. 4 I have shown an arrangement which is desirable under certainconditions and which is made possible by constructing the action in themanner above described. The construct-ion of the ordinary concertinaaction sets a limit upon the number of tones that the instrument canproduce, at least when the keys are in parallel arrangement, due to thefact that the finger buttons must be kept within a reasonably narrowcompass, and, with a parallel arrangement of straight keys the buttonscannot be brought within a narrower space than is occupied by the reedsand valves. By making the keys of metal it is possible to give a bent oroffset form to the bars and so bring the buttons closer together withoutchanging the construction or position of the reeds and valves so that aninstrument can be made having more keys and capable of producing moretones than was possible in the case of the old form of action. Such anarrangement is shown in Fig. 4 in which the bars here designated areoffset beyond their pivotal points. If the bars are made of aluminumcastings, which is the metal I prefer to use, they may be bent, when theaction is assembled, one way or the other, whether the arrangement isthat shown in Fig. 4 or that of Fig. 2, so that there may be in everycase a nice adjustment of the valve to the openings in the key boardwhich it is designed to cover.

While I have described certain preferred forms, constructions andarrangements, it will be understood that there might be somemodification of the same Without departure from my invention. ThereforeI do not limit myself to the precise particulars shown and describedexcept so far as the same are made specifically limitations on certainof the claims herein.

I claim:

1. An action for a concertina or other similar musical instrumentcomprising a plurality of keys each consisting of a key bar made of asingle solid piece of metal and provided at one end with a valve and atthe other with a button, and a wire on which the key bars are mounted,the bars being perforated for this purpose and having at the perforationspacing hubs integrally formed with the bar.

2. An action for a concertina or other similar musical instrumentcomprising a plurality of keys each consisting of a key bar made of asingle solid piece of metal which is capable of being bent and ofretaining its bent shape and provided at one end with a valve and at theother with a button, and a wire on which the key bars are mounted, thebars being perforated for this purpose and having at the perforationslsjpacing hubs integrally formed with the 3. A key bar for a concertinaor like action consisting of a single integral aluminum casting formedat opposite sides with laterally projecting spacing hubs, and with aperforation extending through said bar and hubs.

4. A key for a concertina or like action comprising a pivoted key barprovided with a valve, a button and a pair of strips of spring metalsecured to the button'and having their opposed extremities spread andpivotally attached flatwise against opposite sides of the key bar so asto take a frictional hold upon the same tending to keep the button in adefinite position with respect to the bar.

5. A concertina action comprising in combination a key board, an upperbank of keys each consisting of a key bar formed of a single piece ofmetal provided at one end with a button and at the other end with avalve and being formed with integral spacing hubs, a second bank ofshorter, similarly formed, keys arranged below the first mentioned bank,wires on which said keys are mounted, metal supports on the key boardfor the wires, and a metal bridge intervening between the upper andlower banks of keys and forming a stop for the former.

ERNEST GLASS. Witnesses P. H. TRUMAN, L. A. FALKENBERG.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressingthe Commissioner of Patents, Washington, D. C.

